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Essay Checker: Free Online Paper Corrector

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Why Should You Use a Free Essay Checker?

The simple answer? Good grammar is necessary, but it’s not easy. You've already done countless hours of research to write the essay. You don’t want to spend countless hours correcting it, too.

You'll get a better grade

Good grammar or its absence can determine if you get a good grade or a failing one. Impress your lecturer not just with how grammatically sound your writing is, but how clear it is and how it flows.

You'll save time

Essay writing can be a long and tedious process. ProWritingAid's essay checker saves you the hassle by acting as the first line of defense against pesky grammar issues.

You'll become a better writer

Essay writing is a particular skill and one that becomes better with practice. Every time you run your essay through ProWritingAid’s essay corrector, you get to see what your common mistakes are and how to fix them.

Good Writing = Good Grades

It’s already hard to know what to write in an essay. Don’t let grammar mistakes hinder your writing and prevent you from getting a good grade. ProWritingAid’s essay checker will help you write your best essay yet. Since the checker is powered by AI, using it means that grammar errors don’t stand a chance. Give your professors something to look forward to reading with clear, concise, and professional writing.

How Does ProWritingAid’s Essay Checker Work?

Your goal in essay writing is to convey your message as best as possible. ProWritingAid's essay checker is the first step towards doing this.

Get Rid of Spelling Errors

ProWritingAid’s essay checker will show you what it thinks are spelling errors and present you with possible corrections. If a word is flagged and it’s actually spelt correctly you can always choose to ignore the suggestion.

Fix Grammar Errors

Professors aren’t fans of poor grammar because it interrupts your message and makes your essay hard to understand. ProWritingAid will run a grammar check on your paper to ensure that your message is precise and is being communicated the way you intended.

Get Rid of Punctuation Mistakes

A missing period or comma here and there may not seem that serious, but you’ll lose marks for punctuation errors. Run ProWritingAid’s paper checker to use the correct punctuation marks every time and elevate your writing.

Improve Readability

Make sure that in the grand scheme your language is not too complicated. The essay checker's built in readability report will show if your essay is easy or hard to read. It specifically zones in on paragraphs that might be difficult to read so you can review them.

What Else Can the Essay Checker Do?

The editing tool analyzes your text and highlights a variety of key writing issues, such as overused words, incohesive sentence structures, punctuation issues, repeated phrases, and inconsistencies.

You don’t need to drown your essay in words just to meet the word count. ProWritingAid’s essay checker will help to make your words more effective. You'll get to construct your arguments and make sure that every word you use builds towards a meaningful conclusion.

Transition words help to organize your ideas by showing the relationship between them. The essay checker has a built in Transition report that highlights and shows the percentage of transitions used in your essay. Use the results to add transitions where necessary.

An engaging essay has sentences of varying lengths. Don’t bore your professor with long, rambling sentences. The essay checker will show you where you need to break long sentences into shorter sentences, or add more sentence length variation.

Generally, in scholarly writing, with its emphasis on precision and clarity, the active voice is preferred. However, the passive voice is acceptable in some instances. When you run your essay through ProWritingAid’s essay checker, you get feedback on whether you 'r e using the passive or active voice to convey your idea.

There are academic specific power verbs like appraise , investigate , debunk , support , etc., that can add more impact to your argument by giving a more positive and confident tone. The essay checker will check your writing for power verbs and notify you if you have less than three throughout your essay.

It's easy to get attached to certain phrases and use them as crutches in your essays but this gives the impression of boring and repetitive writing. The essay checker will highlight your repeats and suggest contextually relevant alternatives.

Gain access to in-house blog reports on citations, how to write a thesis statement, how to write a conclusion, and more. Venture into a world of resources specific to your academic needs.

What Kinds of Papers Does ProWritingAid Correct?

No matter what you’re writing, ProWritingAid will adapt and show you where your edits are needed most.

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Professors and students love using ProWritingAid

If you're an English teacher, you need to take a look at this tool - it reinforces what you're teaching, highlights strengths and weaknesses, and makes it easier to personalize instruction.

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Only reason I managed to get an A in all my freshmen composition classes.

Chris Layton

Great tool for academic work. Easy to use and the reports and summary evaluation of your documents in several categories is very useful. So much more than spelling and grammar!

Debra Callender

Questions & Answers

1. how do i use the essay checker online tool.

You can either copy and paste your essay in the essay checker field or upload your essay from your computer. Your suggestions will show once you enter text. You’ll see a number of possible grammar and spelling issues. Sign up for free to get unlimited suggestions to improve your writing style, grammar, and sentence structure. Avoid unintentional plagiarism with a premium account.

2. Does the essay checker work with British English and American English?

The essay checker works with both British English and American English. Just choose the one you would like to use and your corrections will reflect this.

3. Is using an essay checker cheating?

No. The essay checker won’t ever write the essay for you. It will point out possible edits and advise you on changes you need to make. You have full autonomy and get to decide which changes to accept.

4. Will the essay checker auto-correct my work?

The essay writing power remains in your hands. You choose which suggestions you want to accept and you can ignore those that you don’t think apply.

5. Is there a student discount?

Students who have an eligible student email address can get 20% off ProWritingAid Premium. Email [email protected] from your student email address to access your discount.

6. Does ProWritingAid have a plagiarism checker?

Yes! ProWritingAid’s plagiarism checker will check your work against over a billion web-pages, published works, and academic papers, so you can be sure of its originality. Find out more about pricing for plagiarism checks here .

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Bust your writer's block, and create new metaphors by playing the word association game . To begin, type a word or phrase in the box below, and hit enter. To quickly find associations for your own text, highlight a word or phrase in it, and use the toolbox popup.

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• Submission Limit There is a limit of 200,000 characters, which is approximately 30,000 words. Anything longer should be submitted in smaller chunks, or it will be automatically trimmed.
• No document It looks like you forgot to enter your document. Paste it in and try again.
• Structure This tab shows sentence structure within the context of the document. Hover over a sentence to see its word count. Select a word or phrase, or click a sentence to get more information.
• Quotes This tab shows your quotations highlighted as Slick Write sees them.

More information »

• Sentence type flow Pieces with good flow will make use of all four sentence types, varying them to keep the reader interested.
• Sentence length flow Sentence length is indirectly related to sentence type, and is a good indicator of flow. Flow can be altered by adding, removing, lengthening, shortening, combining, or splitting sentences. Long sentences will be indicated by a red line on the graph. Sentences that flow poorly with their surroundings will be orange, and the source of the problem can often be found in a nearby sentence.
• Word length flow Word length is a minor contributor to overall flow, but even minor variations are signs of good rhythm.
• Passive Voice Index This is a measure of how frequently the passive voice is used. Consider revising your document if it scores over 100.
• Prepositional Phrase Index This is a measure of how frequently prepositional phrases are used. Consider revising your document if it scores over 100.
• Average sentence length Sentence length is a major contributor to the level of education required to read a body of text.
• Sentence length standard deviation This is a measure of the amount of variation in the length of a text's sentences. In texts that have broad appeal, this tends to fall between 50 and 90% of the average sentence length. You can increase this number by making long sentences longer, and short ones shorter.
• Sentence deviation to length ratio This is a measure of the sentence variety, and a major contributor to flow. Most novels score between 0.5 and 0.9, and popular ones often score near the high end of the range. You can increase this number by making long sentences longer, and short ones shorter.
• Just the stats preset Use this preset when you're only interested in the stats tab. Critique and Flow will be hidden.
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• Doubled words A word used twice in a row may be a typo.
• Commonly confused words This will check for the internet's most frequently confused words and notify you if it looks like you misused one. It is experimental and probably the least reliable feature. Consult a dictionary when necessary.
• Sentences starting with the same word A word should not be used to start more than one sentence in a single paragraph.
• Misplaced conjunctions It is considered poor style to place coordinating conjunctions at either end of a sentence. Placing a subordinating conjunction at the end of a sentence is against the rules.

It is said that one day, passive voice will bring weakness to your prose.

More information » Even more information »

• Overwriting Words like "very" and "really" make sentences wordier and weaken your message. These can be deleted in almost all cases without affecting the meaning of the sentence.
• Abstract words Abstract words lack specificity and overusing them can make even simple concepts difficult to understand. There are times when abstract words are desirable or even necessary; it would be difficult to write about math or programming without mentioning variables or functions, but you should use more specific terms whenever possible.
• Wordy and redundant phrases These phrases make your writing more difficult to understand. In most cases, they can be replaced with one or two words, or even deleted.
• Legalese These antiquated, arcane words and phrases will make your writing look like a contract.
• Double negatives Double negatives are almost always poor style.
• Adverbs They aren't bad in small quantities, but consider revising your document if more than 5.5% of its words are adverbs. Adverbs ending in "-ly" are considered the worst offenders.
• Adjectives They aren't bad in small quantities. A few of the words on this list can also function as other parts of speech. You have been warned.
• Contractions In formal writing, the use of contractions is considered a fault.

The boxer decked his opponent.

• Profanity Profanity should not be used in formal writing outside of direct quotations.

The critic's scathing review hit the nail on the head .

• Similes Similes and metaphors should be used sparingly. This option will detect most common types of similes.
• "Said" replacements Some people think that these substitutes for "said" are weak or obnoxious, especially if overused.

Her dress was long , and it touched the floor.

Her long dress touched the floor.

• Gender-specific pronouns Avoid using gender-specific pronouns in formal writing when the subject's gender is unknown.
• Weasel words Like abstract words, weasel words and phrases lack specificity. At best, they convey uncertainty. At worst, they can be used to "weasel out" of telling the truth in a straightforward manner. When checking a document that is speculative by nature, you might want to disable this detector.
• Third person pronouns According to this study , high concentrations of third person pronouns may indicate deception.
• Bias language These words and phrases often show the author's bias.
• Uncommon words Uncommon words will increase the document's reading difficulty.

Hot peppers burn my mouth, but I eat them anyway .

Since burritos taste good , I like to eat them.

• Sentence fragments A sentence must have at least one noun and one verb. Anything that does not is a fragment, and if it occurs outside of dialog, it should probably be rewritten.
• Long sentences Long sentences tend to be more difficult to read, making them good candidates for trimming or splitting. Alternatively, parallelism may be used to improve their readability, though this will not decrease the ARI score.
• Success with Style: Using Writing Style to Predict the Success of Novels
• Grammar Girl For your obscure writing questions
• Basic Prose and Style Mechanics An excellent, concise resource
• Television Tropes & Idioms Tricks of the trade
• Writing Realistic Injuries An invaluable article for anyone who writes action or horror
• Online Etymology Dictionary Learn the history of English words
• Scribophile Discuss the finer points of writing with other novelists
• Suggestions from the official See Sharp Press blog Learn about the mistakes that will keep your novel from being published.
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Posted on 26th January 2018

The Do’s and Don’ts of Writing in an Academic Tone

By Cite This For Me

When writing an essay, it is important to argue your points in a clear and concise way, and of course to try to sound intelligent as a speaker. Finding the right tone in your written voice is an essential part of writing, yet many students find it difficult to strike the right balance. It is easy to fall into the trap of writing in either too formal or too casual of a tone. Both extremes can make your argument sound ill-researched and weaken the strength of your essay. However, it is easy to avoid these issues, by taking care to use a direct and active tone in your writing.

Here are some Do’s and Don’ts that will help guide you to find the right voice in your writing and achieve a strong academic tone in your essays.

1. What is the point of an academic paper?

This may sound like a silly question, but many students fail to recognize the main point of essay writing—which is to put forth an argument! Understanding that your essay should make a claim, put forth a new idea or interpretation, or argue a set of points, will ultimately help you to write in a strong academic tone.

If you set out to put forth an argument, and then provide evidence to support it, rather than set out to sound as smart as possible, you will find that your writing sounds clearer. A direct tone and simple language is usually the best route!

2. Avoid writing in an overly formal tone

While this advice might sound counterintuitive, often students mistake formal for academic. You don’t need to make your papers sound like Shakespeare or the most esteemed professor wrote it! When you adopt an overly formal tone in your writing, the result is most often that you sound like you don’t know what you are talking about. Make sure that you use words whose meaning you understand, and sentence structure that makes sense—even if it appears simple.

For example, in a paper on climate change, an overly formal sentence might read:

“The staggering volume of synthetic organic compounds accumulating in large bodies of saline water has engendered a colossal moral quandary for behemoth manufacturers—should they continue the course, or innovate new methods?”

You don’t want to sound like this!

Instead, in clear and direct language, the following sentence means the same thing, but in a more readable way.

“The large volume of plastic waste that has accumulated in the Earth’s oceans has created a moral question for companies that produce large amounts of plastic materials—should they continue to produce plastic? Or phase into producing products that will degrade over time?”

As you can tell, the second sentence is in much plainer English, and sounds far more academic in tone than the first!

3. Avoid colloquialisms

Although it is important to avoid using too formal of a tone in your writing, you also want to be sure that you don’t use colloquialisms—informal words or phrases that are common in spoken English—in your writing. It is easy to avoid slang words, but students often struggle to rid less obvious colloquialisms from their writing.

Most often, these colloquialisms are words or phrases that we use in everyday language when we speak out loud or in informal text conversations. In spoken English and informal text conversations, these phrases are perfectly acceptable. But, you want to avoid them in your writing, because often they are placeholder words and phrases, that merely help to bridge together ideas that draw upon the context of the conversation.

For example, you might text a friend:

“I got tickets to that concert Friday night. You in?”

Here, the word “got” and “you in” are colloquialisms. They make sense in context, but in writing—where you must assume the reader will take what you say literally—it is not clear what you mean by this.

For example, how did you get the tickets? Did you buy them? Did someone give them to you?

While it might sound formal for a text conversation, in an academic tone this sentence would read “I bought tickets to attend that concert Friday night. I can give you a ticket if you want to attend with me.”

To avoid colloquialisms, it is usually a best practice to try to be as specific and direct about what you mean as possible.

4. Don’t use exaggeration or hyperbole

Sometimes when students intend to create emphasis or articulate the importance of a piece of evidence or point in an argument, they rely on exaggeration or hyperbole to try to convince the reader to agree with them. Don’t do this! Most often, hyperbolic phrases make your writing sound corny, and most importantly you must assume that your reader is taking everything you say literally and needs proof of every statement you make.

You might write in your paper on climate change:

“Plastic waste is now clogging the oceans, choking the life out of sea-creatures and threatening to end all ocean-life as we know it!”

This phrase is hyperbolic, and doesn’t actually point to any evidence to support the claim. A better phrased sentence might read:

“According to the Plastic Oceans Foundation, humans have dumped more than 8 million tons of plastic into ocean water each year for several years in a row. This plastic waste does not degrade, and clumps together—which creates large blocks in the ocean that hurt ocean-life.”

As you can see, in this sentence the cited facts do the work to emphasize the points, rather than hyperbole.

5. Avoid making generalizations

Another bad habit that students often have a hard time dropping is making generalizations in their essays. Usually, these generalizations come as a way to introduce material, or make an emotional appeal to the reader. It is important to avoid using generalizations in your essays because like hyperbolic phrases they sound corny, they are hard to prove, and often they don’t even really relate to your argument.

For example, in an essay that argues that the passage of the 19 th amendment failed to promote equality for all women, because racist Jim Crow laws prevented black women from also voting, you might say:

“On July 4th, 1776 the United States of America was born with the undertaking that all Americans should be created equal. Since then the U.S. has been working hard to achieve this promise and it moved one step closer after it passed the 19 th amendment, but not close enough.”

This introduction to the idea of equality reads as corny, and isn’t necessarily specific to the exact topic of the paper.

A better sentence might read:

“Although the passage of the 19 th amendment was a significant step for women’s rights in the US, at the time of its passage it did not actually achieve total voting equality for women, as black women were still largely prevented from voting.”

As you can see, this introduction is much more direct, and specific to the topic.

In order to avoid making generalizations in your paper, try to be as specific as possible, and avoid moving too far away from the topic at hand when you lead into your essay.

6. Don’t use personal pronouns or invoke the reader

In academic writing, it is important to maintain an academic distance from your essay. You want to avoid using personal pronouns because it makes your tone sound too personal, and less factual. You also want to avoid using phrases that will invoke the reader, because you cannot be sure of who your reader is.

For example, a professor of Economics might write a paper on how government spending after the 2008 Financial Crisis helped the economy to recover and publish it in a major Economics academic journal, and write:

“In the wake of the 2008 Financial collapse, our nation experienced a crisis which our government addressed first through a stimulus package.”

In this sentence, the phrases “our nation” and “our government” appeal to the reader as being the same as the writer. This is a problem because you cannot assume who your reader will be. In this example, economists from other countries might read this paper.

A better sentence would just replace “our” with “the United States,” to be more specific and more detached from the information.

Many students find it difficult to strike the right tone in their writing. However, that is no reason to fear writing your papers! As you can see from these suggestions, it is easy to cut out simple bad habits and write in an academic tone.

Academic papers also need citations! If you need to cite in MLA style , APA style , or another citation style, try BibMe.com!

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8 Tips to Make Your Writing Sound More Formal

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Here at ProofreadingPal , we get a lot of requests to “elevate tone,” “create a scholarly tone,” and “increase the formality,” and even “help this sound smart.” Truthfully, we cannot make you sound “smart.” There is no substitute for good ideas, but we can (and do) help you elevate your tone and make you sound like a bona fide professional-thinking person. Here are some handy tricks that you can use yourself.

• Avoid colloquial, informal words

I see a surprisingly high number of formal academic/business works that include words that are better left for the water cooler or over a spirited discussion of the merits of Michael Bay movies. Some words to avoid are “totally” (use “completely” instead), “basically” (just avoid it), “impact” (mostly as a verb. You shouldn’t say “that will impact me”), “wicked” (only use this when chatting in online games), and “cool” (this word can mean just about anything. Try to choose a more precise word). In general, avoid all slang words (e.g., rad, YOLO, heaps, guv). If in doubt, see if you could imagine your professor or boss using it. If not, avoid it.

• Proper use of “such as”

In formal writing, never use “like.” It’s probably the most commonly used feature of speech today for certain populations, but avoid it in formal writing. Compare:

Animals, like bears and tigers, are interesting. Animals, such as bears and tigers, are interesting.

See how much more formal the second sounds?

Get a free sample proofread and edit for your document. Two professional proofreaders will proofread and edit your document.

• Avoid contractions

Contractions such as “can’t,” “didn’t,” and “I’m” are purely a product of verbal speech. We speak in contractions, but the convention is that, for formal, non-fiction writing, we shouldn’t write in them. When writing a formal business letter or an academic essay, forego contractions. It’s easy to use the Word FIND function to seek them out and destroy them.

• Avoid clichés

  Common Formality Mistakes

 This guide wouldn’t be complete without a look at some common practices that people use to make their writing more formal that don’t work. Here are a few practices we end up having to correct time and time again.

5. Don’t use passive voice . Passive voice is wordy, but being formal has nothing to do with wordiness.

• Don’t use thesaurus words you don’t fully understand. Big words don’t make your writing sound more formal, and this can backfire when you pick a word that doesn’t mean what you think it means. Take the sentence, “I saw a red dog walking down the street.” Easy, right? But using too much of a thesaurus might cause you to create: “I consulted a bloodshot mongrel marching down the highway,” which clearly is not what you intended.
• Don’t be wordy.

In all writing, wherever possible, brevity is the soul of wit. (Even I can’t avoid clichés, but at least that’s Shakespeare.) That means, always keep your prose as simple as possible . You may think, “The item that we are discussing could be the solution we are looking for to solve our problem,” sounds better because it’s long, but it’ll just annoy your reader. “That is the solution to our problem,” is better.

• Don’t mangle your sentences with third person.

Some professors still insist their students use third person to make their writing sound more formal, but (and always check with your professor first) style guides such as APA (and us) recommend you use first or second person to prevent passive voice and ambiguous language. Take: “The researcher applied a qualitative approach to the study” for example. Who is the researcher? You or someone else? This is ambiguous. It’s better to say, “I will take a qualitative approach to the study,” and this doesn’t sound any less formal.

Happy writing, and good luck.

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Course: college admissions   >   unit 4.

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How formal should the tone of your college essay be?

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Video transcript

Free online proofreading and essay editor

A reliable proofreading tool and essay editor for any writer or student, a complete environment.

Typely is more than just a proofreading tool. It's a complete writing environment.

Thousands of checks

More than a thousand checks are being performed and we've only scratched the surface.

Inspired by the greatest writers

Gain access to humanity’s collective understanding about the craft of writing.

A proofreading tool that does not bark at every tree

Typely is precise. Existing tools for proofreading raise so many false alarms that their advice cannot be trusted. Instead, the writer must carefully consider whether to accept or reject each change.

We aim for a tool so precise that it becomes possible to unquestioningly adopt its recommendations and still come out ahead — with stronger, tighter prose. Better to be quiet and authoritative than loud and unreliable.

Relax, focus, write your next masterpiece...

Writing presumes more than simply laying out words on a paper. Typely helps you get in the mood and keeps you focused, immersed and ready to write your story.

Whether you need a distraction-free environment, some chill relaxing sounds or a pomodoro timer to manage your time we got you covered.

Got questions? We have answers.

No. Typely is completely free and we plan on keeping it that way. We are considering some advanced features however that might be available under a premium plan.

The only limit we have applied thus far is on the number of characters you can submit and that is being set at a maximum of 50,000.

In theory yes but that will require a lot of work and professionals dedicated for this job. We are considering a way of letting the community participate somehow.

Typely does not do grammar checking because it's hard and almost impossible to get right. The aim for Typely is to be precise and reliable.

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

What is the appropriate tone for a college essay?

It’s no secret that the college process can often feel like a numbers game. Depending on your relationship to standardized testing and numbered scores in general, this can be either a curse or a blessing. Regardless, if you’re hoping to apply to college, especially any colleges that accept the Common Application , chances are the college essay looms somewhere in your future.

In the same way that standardized testing might feel different for different people, whether or not the phrase “college essay” causes your stomach to drop from panic will depend upon your relationship and level of comfort with the written word. If you and the written word are already in a healthy long-term relationship, then you’re probably aware that one of the most important aspects of any piece of writing is tone. The right tone can allow your readers to understand you and your message even more—and the wrong tone, of course, can communicate an entirely different message than you might have intended. Luckily, CollegeVine is here to help. For tips and tricks on taking control of your tone in college essays, read on!

What is tone?

Tone is what helps us differentiate between “Yes, it’s totally fine! I understand and I’m not upset at all.” and “Yeah. It’s totally fine. I understand. I’m not upset at all .”

The dictionary defines tone as “ s tyle or manner of expression in speaking or writing. ” In verbal communication, we can interpret the tone of a conversation based on one’s intonation (the rise and fall of someone’s voice when they speak), body language, as well as other nonverbal cues.

In written communication, however, you obviously aren’t standing face to face with someone interpreting what they say. In lieu of these nonverbal cues, we use things like diction, punctuation, capitalization and sentence structure to add to our message. The context of a given piece is also very important—in this blog post, we’ll mostly be discussing tone in the context of a personal statement to be submitted to college admissions committees, but it is important to note that the different circumstances under which you are writing something will greatly impact the tone of your piece and the way in which it is perceived by your readers.

One of the most important aspects of tone in writing to discuss is the fact that small details can make a huge difference. Think about the example above:

“Yes, it’s totally fine! I understand and I’m not upset and all.”

“Yeah. It’s totally fine. I understand. I’m not upset at all .”

Visually, the two sentences are not all that different, and theoretically, they should be communicating the same message. While the first sentence is straightforward and sincere, the second sentence would likely be interpreted as passive aggressive. Notice the small details that cause the two sentences to communicate two entirely different things.

In considering tone, it might also help you to think about how you would respond to a text from a friend versus how you would respond to an email from your boss. The two would likely be very different because in one case you would be taking a casual tone, and in the other you would hopefully be taking a professional tone.

The Dos & Don’ts of Tone in your College Essay

There is no “perfect tone” for a college essay — given that it should be a reflection of your personality, it will be different for everyone. This being said, there are some tips and tricks that you can follow to make sure that your vibrant personality will shine through in your personal statement. -->

Keep it real —  One of the most important questions to keep in mind when considering tone in your college essay is: Is it true to who I am? Colleges want to get to know you and your personality through your essay. This means that the more unique and real you can make the tone of your college essay, the better. If you love to crack jokes, consider making a few ( tasteful ) jokes in your essay. If you’re more serious, take a more serious tone. If you’re sarcastic, try to include this (but be sure to be careful with this—run it by a few trusted readers first to make sure there’s absolutely no way that your words will be misinterpreted).

Flex your vocabulary knowledge — Your college essay is a great time to show adcoms your level of comfort with the english language, especially with higher-level vocab words. Watch out for the words in writing that typically fall flat or are overused — “good” can easily become “marvelous, wonderful, memorable, etc.” and  “said” can transform into “stated, yelled, remarked, explained…” When it’s appropriate, don’t shy away from using some of the SAT vocab words you’ve likely spent long nights memorizing!

Keep it grammatically correct — Always pay attention to grammar in your essay, even when making choices to benefit your tone. There is nothing worse than trying to be stylistically daring but ending up just making a grammatical error. Short sentences can be a really effective rhetorical tool, for example, but you should never have a sentence without a predicate. Make sure that you understand the proper usages of semicolons, em dashes and colons before you use them in your essay.

Be patient and have fun — Don’t be afraid to play around and experiment with the tone of your essay. Almost everyone’s essay will end up going through multiple different iterations and drafts. If something doesn’t feel quite right, don’t be afraid to start over or make whatever adjustments you need. Though it may feel daunting and confusing, ultimately your college essay is an exciting way for adcoms to get to know you and determine if you’ll be a good fit for their school.

Be overly formal — Taking an overly formal tone in your college essay will appear stiff and out of touch with modern language. Adcoms will likely think that this sort of tone comes from an applicant that is trying too hard to impress them, or hiding behind big words and complicated language to make themselves seem smarter.

Take a stylistic risk that sacrifices grammar — This is mentioned above, but we really can’t stress it enough. Pablo Picasso once said, “ Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.” While this is very much true in all forms of writing, messing up your grammar on a college essay demonstrates that you don’t even know all the rules in the first place. Be sure to exercise extreme caution when it comes to grammar!

Pump up your vocabulary artificially —  In the same way that athletes who use performance enhancing drugs usually get found out, college applicants who use performance enhancing software are pretty easy to spot. Admissions officers know when you’re simply clicking on words and phrases in Microsoft Word and exchanging them for a fancier-looking synonym. Don’t do this! Keep it natural. There’s nothing more transparent and off-putting than someone that finds it imperative to inflate every term in a given expression . After all, you don’t want to appear supercilious . A good rule of thumb for vocab in college essays is that if you wouldn’t use a given word in a conversation (even with a teacher or an an academic setting), then you probably shouldn’t use it in your essay.

Be too colloquial —  This may or may not go without saying, but you obviously shouldn’t get too casual in your essay. Avoid slang words, curse words, misspellings, or jargon that could be easily misunderstood.

Plagiarize —  This one should also go without saying, but we figure we may as well say it anyways. If you plagiarize, chances are that eventually you’ll be found out, and any admission that results from your plagiarized essay will be rescinded! Colleges want to hear your own original thoughts.

While there is no perfect way to write a college essay, hopefully these tips have shed some light onto the subject. When in doubt, remember that this little 650 word piece of writing should be a reflection of who you are as a person! Think about a sentence or two takeaway that you would want a reader to have after reading it and try to convey that throughout the essay. It may seem scary at first, but in the end, writing is a powerful skill that can enrich your life, and tone is a very powerful tool that can be used to your benefit.

For more information about college essays, check out the following blog posts:

Application Ethics: The Importance of Writing Your Own Personal Essay

Whom Should I Ask for Help with My College Essay?

How to Write the Common Application Essays 2017-2018

What If I Don’t Have Anything Interesting To Write About In My College Essay?

Want help with your college essays to improve your admissions chances? Sign up for your free CollegeVine account and get access to our essay guides and courses. You can also get your essay peer-reviewed and improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays.

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I've revised my college essay like a million times by now, but I still can't shake the feeling of doubt. How can I gauge if it's actually hitting the mark and would impress an admissions officer? Does anyone have tips for self-assessment or do I just need to get more people to read it?

Hey there! Ah, the classic essay doubt—it's more common than you think. It's great that you've spent so much time revising your essay, which shows your dedication to making it shine. Self-assessment can indeed be tricky, but here's a little trick: after setting your essay aside for a day or two, read it out loud. This can help you catch any awkward phrases and ensure that the essay flows well.

Also, does your essay sound like you? Your unique voice should come through clearly, giving an admissions officer insight into who you are beyond grades and test scores. Another checkpoint is to ask yourself if your essay addresses the prompt effectively while also telling a compelling story. Are you showing rather than just telling? For example, rather than simply stating that you're passionate about environmental science, describe the time you spent a summer volunteering with a coastal cleanup and what you learned from the experience.

Lastly, having a few more sets of eyes on it can be very helpful. Teachers, counselors, or a friend who's a good writer could provide valuable feedback. Just make sure they understand you're looking for constructive criticism, not just affirmation. This combination of self-analysis and external opinions should give you a good sense on where your essay stands.

Check out CollegeVine's free Peer Essay Review tool, where you can get a free review of your essay from another student. You can also improve your own writing skills by reviewing other students’ essays: https://www.collegevine.com/essays/review

If you want some more professional assistance, advisors on CollegeVine have helped students refine their writing and submit successful applications to top schools: https://www.collegevine.com/experts/essay-review

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CollegeVine’s Q&A seeks to offer informed perspectives on commonly asked admissions questions. Every answer is refined and validated by our team of admissions experts to ensure it resonates with trusted knowledge in the field.

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College Essays

If you grow up to be a professional writer, everything you write will first go through an editor before being published. This is because the process of writing is really a process of re-writing —of rethinking and reexamining your work, usually with the help of someone else. So what does this mean for your student writing? And in particular, what does it mean for very important, but nonprofessional writing like your college essay? Should you ask your parents to look at your essay? Pay for an essay service?

If you are wondering what kind of help you can, and should, get with your personal statement, you've come to the right place! In this article, I'll talk about what kind of writing help is useful, ethical, and even expected for your college admission essay . I'll also point out who would make a good editor, what the differences between editing and proofreading are, what to expect from a good editor, and how to spot and stay away from a bad one.

Table of Contents

What Kind of Help for Your Essay Can You Get?

What's Good Editing?

What should an editor do for you, what kind of editing should you avoid, proofreading, what's good proofreading, what kind of proofreading should you avoid.

What Do Colleges Think Of You Getting Help With Your Essay?

Who Can/Should Help You?

Advice for editors.

Should You Pay Money For Essay Editing?

The Bottom Line

What's next, what kind of help with your essay can you get.

Rather than talking in general terms about "help," let's first clarify the two different ways that someone else can improve your writing . There is editing, which is the more intensive kind of assistance that you can use throughout the whole process. And then there's proofreading, which is the last step of really polishing your final product.

Let me go into some more detail about editing and proofreading, and then explain how good editors and proofreaders can help you."

Editing is helping the author (in this case, you) go from a rough draft to a finished work . Editing is the process of asking questions about what you're saying, how you're saying it, and how you're organizing your ideas. But not all editing is good editing . In fact, it's very easy for an editor to cross the line from supportive to overbearing and over-involved.

Ability to clarify assignments. A good editor is usually a good writer, and certainly has to be a good reader. For example, in this case, a good editor should make sure you understand the actual essay prompt you're supposed to be answering.

Open-endedness. Good editing is all about asking questions about your ideas and work, but without providing answers. It's about letting you stick to your story and message, and doesn't alter your point of view.

Think of an editor as a great travel guide. It can show you the many different places your trip could take you. It should explain any parts of the trip that could derail your trip or confuse the traveler. But it never dictates your path, never forces you to go somewhere you don't want to go, and never ignores your interests so that the trip no longer seems like it's your own. So what should good editors do?

Help Brainstorm Topics

Sometimes it's easier to bounce thoughts off of someone else. This doesn't mean that your editor gets to come up with ideas, but they can certainly respond to the various topic options you've come up with. This way, you're less likely to write about the most boring of your ideas, or to write about something that isn't actually important to you.

If you're wondering how to come up with options for your editor to consider, check out our guide to brainstorming topics for your college essay .

Help Revise Your Drafts

Here, your editor can't upset the delicate balance of not intervening too much or too little. It's tricky, but a great way to think about it is to remember: editing is about asking questions, not giving answers .

Revision questions should point out:

• Places where more detail or more description would help the reader connect with your essay
• Places where structure and logic don't flow, losing the reader's attention
• Places where there aren't transitions between paragraphs, confusing the reader
• Moments where your narrative or the arguments you're making are unclear

But pointing to potential problems is not the same as actually rewriting—editors let authors fix the problems themselves.

Bad editing is usually very heavy-handed editing. Instead of helping you find your best voice and ideas, a bad editor changes your writing into their own vision.

You may be dealing with a bad editor if they:

• Add material (examples, descriptions) that doesn't come from you
• Use a thesaurus to make your college essay sound "more mature"
• Add meaning or insight to the essay that doesn't come from you
• Tell you what to say and how to say it
• Write sentences, phrases, and paragraphs for you
• Change your voice in the essay so it no longer sounds like it was written by a teenager

Colleges can tell the difference between a 17-year-old's writing and a 50-year-old's writing. Not only that, they have access to your SAT or ACT Writing section, so they can compare your essay to something else you wrote. Writing that's a little more polished is great and expected. But a totally different voice and style will raise questions.

Where's the Line Between Helpful Editing and Unethical Over-Editing?

Sometimes it's hard to tell whether your college essay editor is doing the right thing. Here are some guidelines for staying on the ethical side of the line.

• An editor should say that the opening paragraph is kind of boring, and explain what exactly is making it drag. But it's overstepping for an editor to tell you exactly how to change it.
• An editor should point out where your prose is unclear or vague. But it's completely inappropriate for the editor to rewrite that section of your essay.
• An editor should let you know that a section is light on detail or description. But giving you similes and metaphors to beef up that description is a no-go.

Proofreading (also called copy-editing) is checking for errors in the last draft of a written work. It happens at the end of the process and is meant as the final polishing touch. Proofreading is meticulous and detail-oriented, focusing on small corrections. It sands off all the surface rough spots that could alienate the reader.

Because proofreading is usually concerned with making fixes on the word or sentence level, this is the only process where someone else can actually add to or take away things from your essay . This is because what they are adding or taking away tends to be one or two misplaced letters.

Laser focus. Proofreading is all about the tiny details, so the ability to really concentrate on finding small slip-ups is a must.

Excellent grammar and spelling skills. Proofreaders need to dot every "i" and cross every "t." Good proofreaders should correct spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and grammar. They should put foreign words in italics and surround quotations with quotation marks. They should check that you used the correct college's name, and that you adhered to any formatting requirements (name and date at the top of the page, uniform font and size, uniform spacing).

Limited interference. A proofreader needs to make sure that you followed any word limits. But if cuts need to be made to shorten the essay, that's your job and not the proofreader's.

A bad proofreader either tries to turn into an editor, or just lacks the skills and knowledge necessary to do the job.

Some signs that you're working with a bad proofreader are:

• If they suggest making major changes to the final draft of your essay. Proofreading happens when editing is already finished.
• If they aren't particularly good at spelling, or don't know grammar, or aren't detail-oriented enough to find someone else's small mistakes.
• If they start swapping out your words for fancier-sounding synonyms, or changing the voice and sound of your essay in other ways. A proofreader is there to check for errors, not to take the 17-year-old out of your writing.

What Do Colleges Think of Your Getting Help With Your Essay?

Admissions officers agree: light editing and proofreading are good—even required ! But they also want to make sure you're the one doing the work on your essay. They want essays with stories, voice, and themes that come from you. They want to see work that reflects your actual writing ability, and that focuses on what you find important.

On the Importance of Editing

Get feedback. Have a fresh pair of eyes give you some feedback. Don't allow someone else to rewrite your essay, but do take advantage of others' edits and opinions when they seem helpful. ( Bates College )

Read your essay aloud to someone. Reading the essay out loud offers a chance to hear how your essay sounds outside your head. This exercise reveals flaws in the essay's flow, highlights grammatical errors and helps you ensure that you are communicating the exact message you intended. ( Dickinson College )

On the Value of Proofreading

Share your essays with at least one or two people who know you well—such as a parent, teacher, counselor, or friend—and ask for feedback. Remember that you ultimately have control over your essays, and your essays should retain your own voice, but others may be able to catch mistakes that you missed and help suggest areas to cut if you are over the word limit. ( Yale University )

Proofread and then ask someone else to proofread for you. Although we want substance, we also want to be able to see that you can write a paper for our professors and avoid careless mistakes that would drive them crazy. ( Oberlin College )

On Watching Out for Too Much Outside Influence

Limit the number of people who review your essay. Too much input usually means your voice is lost in the writing style. ( Carleton College )

Ask for input (but not too much). Your parents, friends, guidance counselors, coaches, and teachers are great people to bounce ideas off of for your essay. They know how unique and spectacular you are, and they can help you decide how to articulate it. Keep in mind, however, that a 45-year-old lawyer writes quite differently from an 18-year-old student, so if your dad ends up writing the bulk of your essay, we're probably going to notice. ( Vanderbilt University )

Now let's talk about some potential people to approach for your college essay editing and proofreading needs. It's best to start close to home and slowly expand outward. Not only are your family and friends more invested in your success than strangers, but they also have a better handle on your interests and personality. This knowledge is key for judging whether your essay is expressing your true self.

Parents or Close Relatives

Your family may be full of potentially excellent editors! Parents are deeply committed to your well-being, and family members know you and your life well enough to offer details or incidents that can be included in your essay. On the other hand, the rewriting process necessarily involves criticism, which is sometimes hard to hear from someone very close to you.

A parent or close family member is a great choice for an editor if you can answer "yes" to the following questions. Is your parent or close relative a good writer or reader? Do you have a relationship where editing your essay won't create conflict? Are you able to constructively listen to criticism and suggestion from the parent?

One suggestion for defusing face-to-face discussions is to try working on the essay over email. Send your parent a draft, have them write you back some comments, and then you can pick which of their suggestions you want to use and which to discard.

Teachers or Tutors

A humanities teacher that you have a good relationship with is a great choice. I am purposefully saying humanities, and not just English, because teachers of Philosophy, History, Anthropology, and any other classes where you do a lot of writing, are all used to reviewing student work.

Moreover, any teacher or tutor that has been working with you for some time, knows you very well and can vet the essay to make sure it "sounds like you."

If your teacher or tutor has some experience with what college essays are supposed to be like, ask them to be your editor. If not, then ask whether they have time to proofread your final draft.

Guidance or College Counselor at Your School

The best thing about asking your counselor to edit your work is that this is their job. This means that they have a very good sense of what colleges are looking for in an application essay.

At the same time, school counselors tend to have relationships with admissions officers in many colleges, which again gives them insight into what works and which college is focused on what aspect of the application.

Unfortunately, in many schools the guidance counselor tends to be way overextended. If your ratio is 300 students to 1 college counselor, you're unlikely to get that person's undivided attention and focus. It is still useful to ask them for general advice about your potential topics, but don't expect them to be able to stay with your essay from first draft to final version.

Friends, Siblings, or Classmates

Although they most likely don't have much experience with what colleges are hoping to see, your peers are excellent sources for checking that your essay is you .

Friends and siblings are perfect for the read-aloud edit. Read your essay to them so they can listen for words and phrases that are stilted, pompous, or phrases that just don't sound like you.

You can even trade essays and give helpful advice on each other's work.

If your editor hasn't worked with college admissions essays very much, no worries! Any astute and attentive reader can still greatly help with your process. But, as in all things, beginners do better with some preparation.

First, your editor should read our advice about how to write a college essay introduction , how to spot and fix a bad college essay , and get a sense of what other students have written by going through some admissions essays that worked .

Then, as they read your essay, they can work through the following series of questions that will help them to guide you.

Introduction Questions

• Is the first sentence a killer opening line? Why or why not?
• Does the introduction hook the reader? Does it have a colorful, detailed, and interesting narrative? Or does it propose a compelling or surprising idea?
• Can you feel the author's voice in the introduction, or is the tone dry, dull, or overly formal? Show the places where the voice comes through.

Essay Body Questions

• Does the essay have a through-line? Is it built around a central argument, thought, idea, or focus? Can you put this idea into your own words?
• How is the essay organized? By logical progression? Chronologically? Do you feel order when you read it, or are there moments where you are confused or lose the thread of the essay?
• Does the essay have both narratives about the author's life and explanations and insight into what these stories reveal about the author's character, personality, goals, or dreams? If not, which is missing?
• Does the essay flow? Are there smooth transitions/clever links between paragraphs? Between the narrative and moments of insight?

Reader Response Questions

• Does the writer's personality come through? Do we know what the speaker cares about? Do we get a sense of "who he or she is"?
• Where did you feel most connected to the essay? Which parts of the essay gave you a "you are there" sensation by invoking your senses? What moments could you picture in your head well?
• Where are the details and examples vague and not specific enough?
• Did you get an "a-ha!" feeling anywhere in the essay? Is there a moment of insight that connected all the dots for you? Is there a good reveal or "twist" anywhere in the essay?
• What are the strengths of this essay? What needs the most improvement?

Should You Pay Money for Essay Editing?

One alternative to asking someone you know to help you with your college essay is the paid editor route. There are two different ways to pay for essay help: a private essay coach or a less personal editing service , like the many proliferating on the internet.

My advice is to think of these options as a last resort rather than your go-to first choice. I'll first go through the reasons why. Then, if you do decide to go with a paid editor, I'll help you decide between a coach and a service.

When to Consider a Paid Editor

In general, I think hiring someone to work on your essay makes a lot of sense if none of the people I discussed above are a possibility for you.

If you can't ask your parents. For example, if your parents aren't good writers, or if English isn't their first language. Or if you think getting your parents to help is going create unnecessary extra conflict in your relationship with them (applying to college is stressful as it is!)

If you can't ask your teacher or tutor. Maybe you don't have a trusted teacher or tutor that has time to look over your essay with focus. Or, for instance, your favorite humanities teacher has very limited experience with college essays and so won't know what admissions officers want to see.

If you can't ask your guidance counselor. This could be because your guidance counselor is way overwhelmed with other students.

If you can't share your essay with those who know you. It might be that your essay is on a very personal topic that you're unwilling to share with parents, teachers, or peers. Just make sure it doesn't fall into one of the bad-idea topics in our article on bad college essays .

If the cost isn't a consideration. Many of these services are quite expensive, and private coaches even more so. If you have finite resources, I'd say that hiring an SAT or ACT tutor (whether it's PrepScholar or someone else) is better way to spend your money . This is because there's no guarantee that a slightly better essay will sufficiently elevate the rest of your application, but a significantly higher SAT score will definitely raise your applicant profile much more.

Should You Hire an Essay Coach?

On the plus side, essay coaches have read dozens or even hundreds of college essays, so they have experience with the format. Also, because you'll be working closely with a specific person, it's more personal than sending your essay to a service, which will know even less about you.

But, on the minus side, you'll still be bouncing ideas off of someone who doesn't know that much about you . In general, if you can adequately get the help from someone you know, there is no advantage to paying someone to help you.

If you do decide to hire a coach, ask your school counselor, or older students that have used the service for recommendations. If you can't afford the coach's fees, ask whether they can work on a sliding scale —many do. And finally, beware those who guarantee admission to your school of choice—essay coaches don't have any special magic that can back up those promises.

Should You Send Your Essay to a Service?

On the plus side, essay editing services provide a similar product to essay coaches, and they cost significantly less . If you have some assurance that you'll be working with a good editor, the lack of face-to-face interaction won't prevent great results.

On the minus side, however, it can be difficult to gauge the quality of the service before working with them . If they are churning through many application essays without getting to know the students they are helping, you could end up with an over-edited essay that sounds just like everyone else's. In the worst case scenario, an unscrupulous service could send you back a plagiarized essay.

Getting recommendations from friends or a school counselor for reputable services is key to avoiding heavy-handed editing that writes essays for you or does too much to change your essay. Including a badly-edited essay like this in your application could cause problems if there are inconsistencies. For example, in interviews it might be clear you didn't write the essay, or the skill of the essay might not be reflected in your schoolwork and test scores.

Should You Buy an Essay Written by Someone Else?

Let me elaborate. There are super sketchy places on the internet where you can simply buy a pre-written essay. Don't do this!

For one thing, you'll be lying on an official, signed document. All college applications make you sign a statement saying something like this:

I certify that all information submitted in the admission process—including the application, the personal essay, any supplements, and any other supporting materials—is my own work, factually true, and honestly presented... I understand that I may be subject to a range of possible disciplinary actions, including admission revocation, expulsion, or revocation of course credit, grades, and degree, should the information I have certified be false. (From the Common Application )

For another thing, if your academic record doesn't match the essay's quality, the admissions officer will start thinking your whole application is riddled with lies.

Admission officers have full access to your writing portion of the SAT or ACT so that they can compare work that was done in proctored conditions with that done at home. They can tell if these were written by different people. Not only that, but there are now a number of search engines that faculty and admission officers can use to see if an essay contains strings of words that have appeared in other essays—you have no guarantee that the essay you bought wasn't also bought by 50 other students.

• You should get college essay help with both editing and proofreading
• A good editor will ask questions about your idea, logic, and structure, and will point out places where clarity is needed
• A good editor will absolutely not answer these questions, give you their own ideas, or write the essay or parts of the essay for you
• A good proofreader will find typos and check your formatting
• All of them agree that getting light editing and proofreading is necessary
• Parents, teachers, guidance or college counselor, and peers or siblings
• If you can't ask any of those, you can pay for college essay help, but watch out for services or coaches who over-edit you work
• Don't buy a pre-written essay! Colleges can tell, and it'll make your whole application sound false.

Ready to start working on your essay? Check out our explanation of the point of the personal essay and the role it plays on your applications and then explore our step-by-step guide to writing a great college essay .

Using the Common Application for your college applications? We have an excellent guide to the Common App essay prompts and useful advice on how to pick the Common App prompt that's right for you . Wondering how other people tackled these prompts? Then work through our roundup of over 130 real college essay examples published by colleges .

Stressed about whether to take the SAT again before submitting your application? Let us help you decide how many times to take this test . If you choose to go for it, we have the ultimate guide to studying for the SAT to give you the ins and outs of the best ways to study.

Anna scored in the 99th percentile on her SATs in high school, and went on to major in English at Princeton and to get her doctorate in English Literature at Columbia. She is passionate about improving student access to higher education.

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Does my paper flow? Tips for creating a well-structured essay.

by Jessica Diaz

A sure way to improve your paper is to strengthen the way you present your argument. Whether you only have a thesis statement or already have a fully-written essay, these tips can help your paper flow logically from start to finish.

Going from a thesis statement to a first outline

Break down your thesis statement

No matter what you are arguing, your thesis can be broken down into smaller points that need to be backed up with evidence. These claims can often be used to create a ready outline for the rest of your paper, and help you check that you are including all the evidence you should have.

Take the following thesis statement:

Despite the similarities between the documentaries Blackfish and The Cove , the use of excessive anthropomorphism in Blackfish allowed it to achieve more tangible success for animal rights movements, illustrating the need for animal rights documentaries to appeal to human emotion.

We can break the thesis down into everything that needs to be supported:

Despite the similarities between the documentaries Blackfish and The Cove , the use of excessive anthropomorphism in Blackfish allowed it to achieve more tangible success for animal rights movements , illustrating the need for animal rights documentaries to appeal to human emotion .

In the paper, we have to (1) explain and support the similarities between the two documentaries, (2) provide support for excessive anthropomorphism in Blackfish , (3) show that Blackfish achieved more tangible success than The Cove , and (4) demonstrate the importance of human emotion in animal documentaries.

Already, we have four main points that can serve as the backbone for an essay outline, and they are already in an order that makes some intuitive sense for building up the argument.

It is likely that you will need to rearrange, expand, or further break down the outline. For example, in this case we would probably need to add a paragraph that explains anthropomorphism. We also might want to move the section on differences in animal rights success earlier so that it contrasts with the similarities between the films. However, having this starting structure and identifying the main sections of the paper can allow you to go ahead and start writing!

Checking that your argument builds

Reverse outline

While writing, it is often hard to take a step back and assess whether your paper makes sense or reads well. Creating a reverse outline can help you get a zoomed-out picture of what you wrote and helps you see if any paragraphs or ideas need to be rearranged.

To create a reverse outline, go through your paper paragraph-by-paragraph. For each one, read it and summarize the main point of the paragraph in 3-5 words. In most cases, this should align closely with the topic sentence of that paragraph. Once you have gone through the entire paper, you should end up with a list of phrases that, when read in order, walk through your argument.

Does the order make sense? Are the ideas that should go together actually next to each other? Without the extra clutter, the reverse outline helps you answer these questions while looking at your entire structure at once.

Each line of your reverse outline should build on the last one, meaning none of them should make sense in isolation (except the first one). Try pretending you don’t know anything about this topic and read one of your paragraph phrases at random (or read it to someone else!). Does it make sense, or does it need more context? Do the paragraphs that go before it give the context it needs?

The reverse outline method and the line of thinking detailed above help put you in the mind of your reader. Your reader will only encounter your ideas in the order that you give it to them, so it is important to take this step back to make sure that order is the right one.

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Unintentional plagiarism, grammar mistakes, and uncited sources  can turn what you thought was a good paper into a poor one. When you’re writing a paper the last thing you want is for your message to get lost due to incorrect punctuation or confusing sentence structure. You know that the great ideas in your head would make for a standout paper, if only you could get them written clearly on the page. If this struggle sounds familiar, you’re not alone.

Great ideas may be an essential part of high-quality writing, but they’re not the only component. Excellent papers and essays clearly express strong ideas with good grammar, proper punctuation, spot-on spelling, and thorough, careful citations. While this may sound like a lot, your teachers and professors are grading you on your skills as both a writer and a researcher, which means your assignments will require an ethical and attentive approach. Luckily, there is no shortage of available tools to help you along your way.

You could use a plagiarism checker free, though, these tools often lack grammatical support. Given the high stakes and rigorous requirements, the aid of a plagiarism checker without the needed support of a grammar checker could mean the difference between an “A” paper and a “C” or even “D” paper.

Thankfully, the EasyBib Plus plagiarism tool provides all-in-one support to cover all your bases. Our premium essay checker is convenient, easy to use, and includes access to a grammar and spell checker, plus a plagiarism checker. With a single scan, you’ll receive personalized feedback to help identify potentially missing citations and help improve your sentence structure, punctuation, grammar, and more.

Not sure if that noun is spelled correctly, or if the preposition at the end of your sentence is grammatically correct? The EasyBib Plus plagiarism tool is your one-stop shop to help check plagiarism, get grammatical suggestions, correct spelling and punctuation errors, and help create polished papers you can be proud to turn in. And, we haven’t told you the best part yet: you can try our tool free and scan your work for grammar suggestions right now!

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A Grammar Check for Peace of Mind

You know that grammar plays a significant role in your assignments. Not only does it factor into your overall grade, but without clear and precise language, your ideas can lose their impact or might even be misunderstood entirely. Still, with so many different parts of speech and rules to learn and apply, it’s not uncommon to get them mixed up and find yourself questioning your knowledge now and again:

Can you use an adverb to modify a noun? (No. You need an adjective for that.)

Well, can you use it to modify a pronoun ? (Still no.)

What do they modify, then? (Almost everything else. Fun, right?)

Ugh. (That was an interjection .)

Does this have to be so difficult? (Nope!)

Scanning your paper with the EasyBib Plus writing tool delivers more than the basic punctuation and spell check functions that come standard in word processing programs. You’ll receive immediate, targeted feedback that can help improve the sentence structure and style of your writing. Not only can this help ensure that you don’t lose points off your grade for grammatical errors such as mismatched verb tense, but it can also help to clarify your meaning and strengthen your arguments by eliminating confusing punctuation and run-on sentences that confuse readers.

Reviewing your work to correct errors and refine the flow of your writing is a critical part of the revision process for novices and novelists alike. Even the most conscientious of wordsmiths might make mistakes, such as using a conjunctive adverb in place of a coordinating conjunction or pairing a plural determiner with an uncountable word. They likely appreciate a subscription-based or free grammar check as much as a beginning writer. That’s why the EasyBib Plus writing tool is designed for all writers, from students who are still learning the fundamentals to published professionals who get paid by the word.

The EasyBib Plus writing tool provides quick, targeted feedback that you can use to help improve your writing immediately. Also, our free resource library is available 24/7, just like the rest of our tools, to help you brush up on the areas that challenge you the most (Conjunctive what? Uncountable who?) That means you can continue to sharpen your skills and improve your writing over time, which will help make finishing your next project easier.

Ready to give your paper a boost? Sign up for EasyBib Plus or scan a paper right now for a free spell check—it’s easy!Just upload or copy and paste your paper to the online grammar check tool and, in a matter of seconds, you’ll be able to receive up to 5 feedback cards so you can begin polishing your draft.

To learn more about proofreading tools, you can find more info here. Or, for more tips on grammar, punctuation, and style, check out this useful reference .

Why is Grammar So Important, Anyway?

Why is grammar important? As long as others know what you mean, does it really matter if you use proper grammar? These are age-old questions, but the answers remain unchanged. Grammar is important for many reasons:

Communication:  Communication is about more than merely listening and talking. We communicate in myriad ways: with our voices, our mannerisms, our facial expressions, our actions, and frequently, our written words. Written communication is just as important as all the other ways we broadcast our thoughts and feelings. Unlike our other communication methods, though, written communication leaves a record. While most of us relax our style when talking to or texting friends, the fact remains that more formal venues require a more formal tone. Proper spelling, grammar, and punctuation are a necessary element of professional and academic writing, so running your work through a spelling and grammar check before you submit it is an absolute must.

Clarity:  Expressing your thoughts, ideas, and opinions is an uphill battle when you communicate them with less-than-stellar punctuation, spelling, and grammar. A missing or misplaced comma, for example, can entirely change your meaning:

• Call me Ishmael = My name is Ishmael.
• Call me, Ishmael = I want Ishmael to call me.

Spelling errors can result in similarly muddled meaning:

• Her shoes perfectly complemented her dress. = Her shoes and dress go well together.
• Her shoes perfectly complimented her dress. = Her shoes can both speak and engage in flattery.

Grammar deficiencies such as a dangling modifier yield similarly confusing results:

• I saw the girl’s purple backpack in the library. = The purple backpack belonging to the girl is in the library; I saw it.
• I saw the purple girl’s backpack in the library. = You know the girl who mysteriously turned purple? I saw her backpack in the library. This week has not been easy on her.

Credibility: Establishing your credibility is critical whether you’re writing for school or business. Proving that you can reliably communicate using proper grammar is essential to establishing and maintaining the trust of your teachers, professors, readers, customers, and colleagues.

To learn even more about the importance of English grammar in writing, check here .

What Happens After I Upload My Paper?

Once you upload a paper, the EasyBib Plus grammar checker scans your text and highlights grammar issues within your document so you can see it in context. For users running a grammar check and spell check using the grammar check free tool, up to the first 5 issues are shown. For subscription subscribers, all of the areas that require your review will be highlighted once the scan is complete.

No matter which version of the tool you’re using, your feedback will include detailed explanations so you can understand why the text was flagged. Other highlighted areas will include examples of how the issues can be fixed. Some will include a detailed explanation as to why the issue was flagged. This personalized feedback allows you to make an educated decision about whether to edit your text or dismiss the suggestion, so you’re always in control of your final draft.

Subscription users also have the plagiarism checker at their disposal when scanning their papers for style and grammar suggestions. Just as with our other writing tools, when you use the tool to check plagiarism, changes are never made without your review, so you are always in the driver’s seat. You can review each highlighted area as well as the sources of matching text and will always be given a choice to either accept or ignore both citation and grammar suggestions.

Whether you are a student or a professional, the EasyBib Plus tools are powerful allies that can help you improve your paper, establish credibility as a writer, and maintain an ethical writing process.

Try our checker free for 3 days to see what you think*. Trust us; you’ll wonder how you got along so far without it!

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Check for Unintentional Plagiarism

Persistent use of the best grammar checker and spell checker you can find will help to shape up the style and substance of your composition. However, to ensure the integrity of your work and root out unintentional instances of academic dishonesty, you’ll also need to incorporate a subscription-based or free plagiarism checker for students.

The ability to scan your paper and check plagiarism and grammar before submitting your work is an invaluable tool for students. It’s so valuable, in fact, that students are not the only ones who consistently use this type of software.

Many teachers and professors use a service to ensure that student papers are original and include properly formatted and sourced citations for all reference materials. For some, this may be a consistent element of their grading process, while others may utilize one only when they feel there is a reason to do so.

What Exactly Does a Plagiarism Checker Do?

If you’ve used an online plagiarism checker before, you may be familiar with the process that these tools employ. For those who have never used one, it can be helpful to understand how these tools work and what you should expect as a result of using one.

The most basic free tools will scan your paper and provide you with a percentage that indicates how much of your work is original. This feature can be useful to a point, as some instructors and institutions set a percentage for the amount of similar text that is considered acceptable. This policy does not mean that they are lenient about academic dishonesty but, instead, that they recognize that similar or even matching word choice is not always an indicator of copying.

However, some schools do not tolerate any form of incremental plagiarism, period. In these institutions, “check paper for plagiarism” is likely a standard action when grading all papers.

With a free plagiarism checker, the percentage of word-for-word plagiarism in your text may be the only feedback you receive. Moreover, some of these providers may wade in unethical waters, and offer essay writing services in conjunction with their checking services. This is why many students and teachers prefer subscription-based checkers that focus on integrity, such as the EasyBib writing tools.

With our premium tools, you get more than just supporting proof that your paper is original and in your own words. Your writing is scanned for potentially matching text and areas that needs your attention is highlighted. We’ll provide you with the source of the matching text so you can review it and decide how to proceed. If you agree that a citation is needed, our citation tools and resources will provide you with the information you need to help format and insert the new sources in your text as well as your works cited page.

How Does the EasyBib Plus Online Plagiarism Checker Work?

The EasyBib Plus writing tool provides an all-in-one spell check, grammar review, and plagiarism checker that not only helps you with the paper you’re writing now but enables you to gain new knowledge and improve your writing for the future, too.

Our essay checker searches online for phrases, sentences, or passages that are similar to those in your paper. If it returns matching text, this may indicate that you have passages that are missing citations.

Just as with many checkers, our tool will tell you how many instances of matching text it finds in your paper. Our plagiarism tool is designed to do more than most free tools, however.

When a portion of your paper is flagged for review, we provide you with the source that it matches. As with our online spell check tool, you have the power to review each area and choose how to proceed. If you decide to cite the flagged text, you can review the suggested source and access our citation tools to help create a proper citation and start building a bibliography for your paper. Or, you may determine that no citation is needed, in which case it’s simple to dismiss the suggestion and continue to the next section.

If you’re unsure about how to proceed, our library of resources can help you learn more and make an educated decision. In this way, you gain more than just the ability to correct your work; over time, you can learn how to avoid plagiarism altogether.

Reasons Your Teacher May Run Your Paper Through a Plagiarism Detector

As stated previously, your teachers and professors grade papers with a fixed process that includes “check paper for plagiarism” as a standard, across-the-board action. Others may check for plagiarism only when they feel there is cause to do so. There are a few red flags that may stand out to them while reviewing a paper that would lead to their running a plagiarism check, including:

Style/Voice:  Most teachers are familiar with the style and voice that you use in your writing. While most will hope that the feedback they provide when grading your work will help you to improve problem areas over time, a paper or essay that has a dramatically different style or voice than the work you’ve previously submitted can be a red flag.

Inconsistency:  Changes in the font, font size, formality, formatting, and more may indicate that portions of a paper have been copied and pasted. If these inconsistent passages are not presented as quotations or don’t include citations, this may further indicate to your teacher that there’s plagiarism in the paper.

Old References:  Part of a well-researched paper is verifying the legitimacy and relevance of your sources. While some older references may be acceptable depending on the topic, if all of your sources are outdated, it may lead your teacher to believe that you’ve recycled your own work or someone else’s.

Looking for a checker to try? With EasyBib Plus you get unlimited checks to give you peace of mind when turning in your papers!

What is Plagiarism?

If you’re looking for a free online plagiarism checker , you’re already aware that it’s not something you want to be found in your papers. However, you may still be wondering: what does plagiarism mean? It’s a reasonable question and one that merits exploring. After all, some of the actions and circumstances that fall within the plagiarism definition come as a surprise to those who only learn that they’ve committed them after it’s too late.

So what is plagiarism? To define plagiarism in the most basic sense, you might say that it is taking someone else’s ideas and words and passing them off as your own.

If your goal is avoiding plagiarism entirely, you’ll need to go beyond the basics to thoroughly define plagiarism, recognize it, and keep clear of it. Some examples of plagiarism that students find surprising include forgotten citations, poor paraphrasing, and re-submitting your own work in whole or in part for more than one assignment. This useful article provides more help in recognizing and understanding the different forms that academic dishonesty can take.

Of course, using your own words and ideas does not count as plagiarism, nor does using common knowledge . Basically, common knowledge is information that is well known by the average person. Examples of common knowledge:

• there are 12 months in a year
• the freezing point of Celsius is zero degrees
• Socrates was a Greek philosopher

So should you only include your original thoughts and common knowledge in your papers? Of course not! Research-based assignments are meant to demonstrate your skills as a researcher, after all, as well as your ability to build upon the work of others to formulate new ideas. To avoid accidentally committing an act that falls within the plagiarism definition when you’re using another person’s words or ideas, though, you need to give them proper credit. This means you’ll need to clearly identify direct quotations or properly paraphrase them when including them in your paper.

Regardless of your approach, you’ll also need to cite your sources according to the style your professor specifies. Generally, you will use MLA format for the arts and humanities and APA format for the sciences, but it’s always best to check with your instructor when you’re unsure.

If you know what style to use but still aren’t sure how to create your citations, don’t fret! Our library of resources includes free guides to help you learn about various styles so you can properly structure and place them. And our premium tools not only help you check grammar, spelling, and originality in your papers, but subscribers also enjoy access to our citation creation tools!

What are the Different Types of Plagiarism?

In addition to the question “what is plagiarism,” you may also be wondering, “why do students plagiarize?” While some students do intentionally plagiarize because they believe they can pass off someone else’s work as their own to avoid spending time on their assignments, many others do so accidentally. They may not understand how broad the plagiarism definition is or they haven’t learned how to research and cite their sources properly. That is why it is vital to recognize plagiarism in all of its forms if you wish to ensure the integrity of your work.

Examples of plagiarism & How to prevent it

Direct plagiarism:

Intentionally copying another person’s work without including a citation that gives credit to the source. When most students are asked to identify potential plagiarism examples and behaviors, this direct and deliberate act is what they think of first.

• Prevention: If you use an idea or quote from another source, cite it in the text. Make it clear that it was not your own words. 

Incremental plagiarism:

Copying parts of another person’s work, such as phrases, sentences, or paragraphs without crediting the source. When deciding which tools to use to check a paper for plagiarism , instructors often seek out those that will identify incremental forms as well as instances of direct copying and similar phrasing.

• Prevention : Decide to either directly quote the phrases or sentences you want to use, or write a good paraphrase. In both cases, be sure to add a citation. Using a plagiarism checker could also help you identify problematic passages.

Self-plagiarism:

Academic self-plagiarism occurs when a student submits the same paper or parts of a paper for more than one assignment. When your instructors are grading your papers, they’re assessing your research and writing skills in the present. When you submit work that you completed in the past, they are both unable to evaluate your current skills and unaware that you haven’t completed the assignment.

• Prevention: Write a new paper for each assignment you’re assigned. If you feel strongly that your past work could enhance your new paper, speak to your instructor and ask for permission first.

Misleading citations:

Including a citation for a quote or idea that misrepresents the source material. This can occur if a student does not understand the reference they are citing; if a student includes a citation for a disreputable source; or the source material simply does not align with the idea or argument that the student has attributed to it.

• Prevention: Carefully review your assignment to understand it. As you research, take the time to evaluate each source notes . Remember, it’s better to have quality citations over an abundance of citations.

Invented sources:

If a reference in a student’s bibliography is found not to exist, it is considered an invented source. This may occur if a student couldn’t find a reputable source to back their argument, or if they needed to include additional references to meet the requirements of the assignment and chose to take an unethical shortcut rather than completing the required amount of research. No matter the reason, this behavior ultimately hurts them in the long run. Not only will they fail to gain the experience they need to conduct research in the future properly, but they’ll also experience significant consequences if they’re caught.

• Prevention: Set aside time to do proper research so you can find enough sources. Start creating a list of sources as you’re researching and take good notes. This will help you keep track of your sources so none are forgotten. If you do end up forgetting where a quote came from, a paper checker could help you pinpoint the original source. 

Patchwriting/Spinning:

Patchwriting is often confused with paraphrasing, but there’s a significant difference. When you paraphrase, you demonstrate that you understand the topic well enough to restate it in your own words. When you patchwrite or spin, it is more akin to a word-swapping game; there’s no need to understand the subject, merely to have access to a thesaurus so you can substitute enough synonyms to mask the source material. This can be intentional, but it may also be a result of having a poor understanding of how to paraphrase.

• Prevention: Using your own words, write down the key points of the phrase or idea, and put them together in a sentence. Be sure to include a citation as well. 

A good way to test if you’re patchwriting or paraphrasing is to remove your sources from view. If you can write about what you’ve read without looking at the source material, you likely understand it well enough to paraphrase it. If you have to review the source material with each new sentence or consult a thesaurus while writing about it (except when you’re adding direct quotations), you may be spinning your sources instead of paraphrasing them.

Academic Integrity Policies and Statements

If you’re still uncertain about what counts as plagiarism, look for your school’s/ organization’s policies on academic integrity and plagiarism. The policies of academic institutions usually cover what is considered plagiarism, the consequences of committing it, and how to avoid it. One great example is Purdue University’s Academic Integrity statement .

What are the Consequences of Plagiarism?

No matter the setting, plagiarism is not taken lightly, and the consequences can be significant. For a good reason, too! Whether in an academic or professional setting, the plagiarism consequences reflect the seriousness of the act, which is ultimately a form of theft that hurts everyone involved.

Just as with the theft of a tangible object, there can be legal punishments for plagiarism. It is, after all, a form of copyright infringement in many instances. A quick search for plagiarism articles will reveal that professional instances of intellectual theft have resulted in civil lawsuits and can even be criminally prosecuted under rare circumstances. In addition to the possible legal consequences, professionals may lose their jobs or have to start over in a new field after their acts of fraud are uncovered.

As a student, you’re likely to wonder what happens if you plagiarize in college or high school. While there will almost always be consequences for this behavior, there is no one-size-fits-all plagiarism sentence. Depending on the circumstances, academic dishonesty could result in outcomes such as:

• You might get a zero for the assignment in which the infringement occurred.
• You may receive a failing grade for the class. If it is a required course, this could leave you without enough credits to move on to the next level until you can repeat it and, in some instances, postpone graduation.
• You may be expelled from your school or university.

The academic dishonesty may be noted on your transcript, which can lead to you not getting into your preferred college, graduate school, or Ph.D. program in the future.

Nobody wants to be known as a fraud or to have a reputation for dishonesty follow them through their career. And, given the consequences that can extend beyond just their reputation, it’s no wonder that professional and academic writers who wish to avoid them take the time to understand the complete definition of plagiarism and run their work through a plagiarism checker before sending it out into the world.

Even the vigilant can fall prey to inferior tools, unfortunately. Before selecting a plagiarism checker, you should understand how they work and what they can (and cannot) detect.

How We Check for Plagiarism

When exploring how to check for plagiarism, most students and professionals conclude that including a checking tool in their revision process is not only helpful but necessary. When you consider the Herculean task of checking each line of your paper against the text of each of your resources, the benefits of a checker are clear. Moreover, this manual approach would only alert you to matching text in the sources you’re aware of, after all, and leaves the sources you haven’t reviewed untouched.

But, hang on. Why would sources you haven’t reviewed factor into your review? The answer to this lies in the plagiarism definition you learned above. What is plagiarism? It’s presenting someone else’s work or ideas as your own, intentionally or otherwise. It is not uncommon to uncover an idea while you’re researching a topic and later misremember it as your own. This might even occur years after you originally came across it.

You might wonder: how can plagiarism be avoided if you have to account for the source of every thought you include in your work? A few exceptions minimize the scope of this. Common knowledge about your topic does not need to be supported by a citation, nor does knowledge that you gained through your personal experience. Using a subscription-based or free plagiarism checker will help you locate any passages that may fall into these categories so you can review them and decide for yourself whether a citation is needed.

EasyBib Plus writing tools provide easy, convenient, and reliable support to help you find potentially missed citations and can help you improve your paper into a high-quality paper with integrity. Simply upload your paper, select the checker, then sit back and relax as the site scans your document. In mere moments, we’ll search the web for passages of similar text and highlight duplicate content for your review.

Regardless of the tools you use to help you revise and polish your work, it’s ultimately your responsibility to ensure that you’re writing and submitting ethical work. That’s why our tools go beyond the basics and require your participation. The tool never automatically makes changes to your paper, but only flags sections that may need your attention and provides you with the matching source so you can to make an educated decision.

If you find that a citation is needed, our citation tools can help you create properly formatted citations and develop a complete bibliography. And, if you review the passage and determine that the match is coincidental, you can dismiss the alert and move on to the next.

Seamless Citation Creation

Professional writers and students alike can find creating citations incredibly confusing. Nevertheless, they are an integral part of a well-written and researched paper and a requirement in almost all academic settings. But, have you ever wondered why they are so important? Citations really do have a purpose—other than driving us crazy— that make it necessary always to cite our sources.

We cite our sources for a few important reasons:

We need to give credit where credit is due. When you use a quote from someone else’s work, you need to give credit for using their words and ideas. Research is often based on the works and ideas of others. However, to include the words and ideas of another without giving them proper credit is to plagiarize, even if the act was unintentional.

In addition, showing that you’ve done proper research by including in text & parenthetical citations and a comprehensive list of sources to back up your arguments gives your work a layer of credibility that can help you earn the trust of your reader or teacher.

Readers can find the sources you used.  When you’re writing high school or undergraduate papers, your only readers may be your instructors and peers. However, including citations at every level of writing helps to ensure that anyone who reads your work can access your sources to check their accuracy, learn more about your topic, and further their own research.

Sources can take your research and learning to the next level, too. When you are conducting research on a topic, checking the works cited or annotated bibliographies prepared by your sources can lead you down new avenues in your research to further develop your ideas and help you write your papers.

Correctly utilizing citations gives strength to your thoughts and opinions. Understanding the value of citations does not, unfortunately, make them any easier to create. We know how confusing it can be, but don’t throw in the towel on learning how to cite websites in MLA , create your APA citation website references, or format your works cited —this is where we come in!

While a free online plagiarism detector may tell you how much of your work is unoriginal and may even identify the passages that meet their plagiarize definition, a premium EasyBib Plus plagiarism checker account also gives you access to our powerful citation resources and generator so you can:

Scan your papers with the plagiarism tool to check for plagiarism-free work before you submit.

Review flagged passages to determine if they meet the plagiarism definition and create unlimited citations in APA format and MLA format for anything fitting the plagiarism meaning. Need more styles ? Check out our regular citation generator for thousands of choices and free resources to help you learn how to create an APA parenthetical citation , APA book citation , APA works cited , and so much more!

Build a full bibliography for your paper right along with your parenthetical or in-text citations, which can save you hours of work along the way compared to manually creating and formatting them.

How Else Do We Help You Improve Your Paper?

The EasyBib Plus plagiarism detector helps you check your content or paper for text that may be missing a citation—which may fall within the definition of plagiarism—to help ensure you don’t accidentally plagiarize. It also includes grammar check and spelling check tools to help identify errors and suggest grammatical tweaks that could help to elevate the level of your writing.

Running a plagiarism check couldn’t be easier! Just upload your paper to the online proofreader, and in a few moments we’ll have your writing and citing suggestions. And, there’s no need to worry about your paper after it’s been scanned.

Run a Grammar and Spell Check for Free!

There’s no denying that your schoolwork can be challenging at times, and your assignments can lead to some late nights even when you’ve started them early. The last thing you want is to submit assignments that don’t reflect your best effort, but it can occasionally be quite the juggling act to get everything done on time.

Why not let our plagiarism checker free up space on your calendar by helping you revise your papers quickly and efficiently? The EasyBib Plus paper checker is your one-stop shop to check for plagiarism, create citations, spot spelling mistakes, and receive feedback on your grammar and style.

When you proofread and do a manual spelling check on work that you’ve written, you’re more likely to overlook mistakes. This is even more likely if you’re pressed for time or trying to complete several different assignments at once. There are tricks to help minimize this, such as reading your work aloud to identify poor grammar or reading each sentence backward to find spelling errors. When time is of the essence, though, these solutions aren’t the most convenient or useful options. That’s why many students seek the assistance of online tools that will run a grammar and plagiarism check on their work.

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Published February 3, 2019. Updated April 9, 2020.

Written and edited by Michele Kirschenbaum and Melissa DeVrieze Meyer . Michele is a school library media specialist and the in-house librarian at EasyBib. You can find her here on Twitter. Melissa is a professional writer and editor based in New Jersey. She writes for academic brands and independent publishers about writing, grammar, and literature, and creates study and curriculum materials for ESL learners. You can find her on Twitter .

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Four Ways to Make Your Writing Sound Prettier

by Joe Bunting | 17 comments

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Some writers write prose that sounds good. The writing makes you want to read it slow, as if you could let the words melt on your tongue.

I once read some of Faulkner's Sartoris out loud to Liz. Faulkner is known for his long, convoluted sentences and huge jumps in the narrative. Liz said, “Eugh. That's an intense sentence. Do you even understand that?”

“Kind of,” I said. “Not really. But it's beautiful.” The thing is, I didn't need to understand it. The way the words sounded was enough.

Photo by JD Hancock

Here's some vocabulary for you. The study of the sounds of words and sentences is called phonoaesthetics. Thus, someone who studies the sounds of words would then be called a phonoaesthete (isn't that a fun word!). And when the words and sentences sound pleasant together, it's called euphony—as opposed to cacophony.

So that's our vocab for the day (or week):

• Phonoaesthetics – the study of the sounds of words whether pleasant or unpleasant
• Euphony – Pleasant sounding words and sentences
• Cacophony – Unpleasant sounding words and sentences

How To Make Your Writing Sound Euphonic

The question, then, is how do we make our writing sound more interesting? Here are four suggestions:

1. Alliteration

Alliteration is the repetition of the first letter of the word throughout a sentence. Alliteration gives a sentence flow. If each letter were a color, it would be like painting with a palette of corresponding colors. Alliteration smooths out hard edges and creates smooth lines. Here's a quick example.

Tommy took the truck to the train station.

Lot's of repeated T's there. Below is an example from Herman Melville's Moby Dick . See if you can spot the alliteration.

Um-m. So he must. I do deem it now a most meaning thing, that that old Greek, Prometheus, who made men, they say, should have been a blacksmith, and animated them with fire.

Did you see it? Right, the M's throughout the sentence and a few D's in the beginning. Try reading it out loud. See how well the sentence flows. Melville used alliteration all over the place, and he is considered one of the great American masters.

2. Consonance

Consonance is the repetition of consonant sounds inside of a word. The repetition of consonants (which are the opposite of vowels), especially hard consonants like T's and K's, tend to create cacophony rather than euphony. Here's another example from Moby Dick. It's a bit harder.

Ere the Pequod's weedy hull rolls side by side with the barnacled hulls of the leviathan…

Did you see it? I'll show the example again with the repeated consonants highlighted.

Ere the Pequod's weedy hu ll ro ll s side by side with the barnac l ed hu ll s of the l eviathan…

Now do you hear all those L sounds? Read it again really slow and you'll see how the consonance ties the sentence together beautifully. The L's almost make you feel rolly, as if you are on the deck of a ship lilting in sea.

3. Assonance

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds inside of the word. Theoretically, assonance can create mood, give you like airy feelings if you're repeating ae and ee sounds, and deep soulful feelings when repeating oe sounds. Finding assonance is a bit harder still, but here's another example from Moby Dick .

And as though not a soul were nigh him…

Did you see it? I'll show it again with highlights.

And as th ou gh not a s ou l were nigh him…

Here, Melville repeats the ough sound, as in dough and mow. Theoretically, the emphasis of the ough sound should make you feel more expansive and soulful. However, I'm not very good at using assonance so I can't tell you for sure. You might experiment with it.

4. The Single BEST Way To Make Your Writing Sound Better

The best way to make your writing more euphonic is to read beautiful writing and read it slow.

Here's why. Authors don't approach the blank page thinking, “Oh, I think I'll focus on assonance today. Hmm… maybe I should play with Alliteration.” No. They do it instinctively, and the best way to hone your instincts is through careful reading.

Take a page or even just a paragraph of a piece of literature and read it slowly over five to ten minutes. Sound the words out as you go. Read aloud so that you can hear the words as well as visualize them.

(And then practice writing beautifully yourself.)

Reading, more than anything else, will hone your instincts for phonoaesthetics.

PRACTICE For our practice time today, why don't you use the chance to start something for the “Show Off” Contest . The prompt is Christmas . First, follow the link and pick a random passage of Moby Dick , and read for five minutes . Choose just one or two paragraphs. Pay special attention to the sounds of Melville's prose. Let the rhythms sink into you. Then, just write. Write about your favorite Christmas memory. Write about your worst Christmas. Write about the best gift you ever received and what made it special. As you write, listen to the sounds and let your mind drift away. Focus on sound not meaning. Write for ten minutes . Post your practice in the comments when you're done.

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Joe Bunting

Joe Bunting is an author and the leader of The Write Practice community. He is also the author of the new book Crowdsourcing Paris , a real life adventure story set in France. It was a #1 New Release on Amazon. Follow him on Instagram (@jhbunting).

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17 Comments

Christmas had passed in a whirlwind as we prepared to marry on the twenty-seventh of December. The greenery was still hanging, though only by a thin thread, in the candlelit sanctuary that cold winter evening. Friends and family found their way through the frigid night to join us in the warmth of the church that had long been the spiritual and social center of that small community.

The flicker of flame illuminated the colorful bouquets beautifully arranged in delicate fingers. Voices soulfully singing the love songs of the ages joined the prayers of the saints in a symphony of adoration rivaling the likes of Solomon himself.

The pull of gravity lost all power as she entered the room. All heads turned towards her like sunflowers worshiping the sun. Galileo would be unable to theorize the unexplainable force we all felt that winter night thirty one years ago.

Light reflected off her softly veiled eyes as she moved down the aisle in her father’s arm. All spectrum of color melted into shadow as the gown of white cascaded from her beauty. Blonde tresses framed her loveliness. A loveliness that I knew seeped deep into her beautiful soul.

We met at the altar, in awe of the gift of love; the gift of God.

Wow, Tom. This is a bit different from you, and you do a great job of it. You did a great job weaving alliteration in there through out. It makes it more readable, doesn’t it?

Like this: “the spiritual and social center of that small community.” This sentence is fairly boring in regards to its meaning, but the alliteration gives it flow.

Here’s another quick exercise for you. You’re a musician. Read this aloud again: “Voices soulfully singing the love songs of the ages joined the prayers of the saints in a symphony of adoration rivaling the likes of Solomon himself. ”

How does that sound to you? I’m wondering if that’s a few too many S’s. Of course, I’m the one who told you to do it, so if there are, it’s my fault.

You know about the Inklings? The writing group Tolkien and CS Lewis were part of. They met at a pub in Oxford, and sometimes they would read this one female author I forget the name of who overused alliteration. They had contests to see who could read the longest without cracking up. When I heard this story I got all panicky and thought, am I overusing alliteration? Like all tools, you’ve got to find the right use for them. Use alliteration but be aware of when it can seem silly.

I think you did a great job though. Alliteration can pass on a mood of awe, perfect for this story. It must have been a good “Christmas.” Thanks Tom.

Haha! Yes, that one sentence reminds me of the kid’s tongue twister, “She sells sea shells by the seashore.” What if I just deleted the first part of that sentence and started with “The love songs…”?

Ha, right. Yeah, I think that would work. Good idea.

Very, very, very nice and thoughtful piece. I especially liked your “All heads turned towards her like sunflowers worshipping the sun” and “the pull of gravity lost all power as she entered the room.” So much emotion and color in such a short piece.

I am so glad I discovered this article of yours. Writing is simply a difficult task for me but please review my short paragraph. I am in the process of revision for my English standard grade exam.- I pondered, desperately pleading the hesitant burning ball of gas to reveal its strange yet comforting rays of light. The warm,orange glow that sinks into my skin during the summer time. Let the weariness of adventure of the winter time pass as it takes along with it the left overs of Christmas past.

Christmas day, 1989. The television tunes to a macabre and unfortunately pleasing gift. The Caucescu’s bloody and broken bodies lay, folded backwards. A sense of release and relief is felt by those who poor and starving have over the past 20 years toiled endlessly to grow food they cannot eat, craft merchandise they cannot afford, and it’s amazing to see how much joy can be derived out of someone else’s demise. The show trial went for 90 minutes. The old man, exhausted, throws his hat on the table in resignation. Much to their protest their hands are now tied behind their backs. This is the nadir. The soldiers have no pity on them. As one exclaims, no one will help them now. Their only last request – to be killed together. Mercifully that last request is granted. Rounds of bullets send an impenetrable cloud of dirt and debris into the air, and only when the smoke clears can we see the end result. Elaine and Nikola lay,

dead. – together.

[Hook] x4 Got the club going up on a Tuesday Got yo girl in the cut and she choosy

[Verse] Working Monday night, on the corner flipping hard Made at least three thousand, on the Boulevard I’ve been working graveyard, shifts every other weekend Ain’t got no fucking time to party on the weekend I’ve been flipping in the house, making juugs on the highway I’ve been riding out of state, making money like my way I don’t think that I should dance, I’m just gon have another drink I’m doing my stance, you know my Molly pink I’ve got the loudest of the loud, you know my gas stink My P.O. think I’m in the house, don’t give a damn about what she think

[Bridge] It ain’t no way no how I made it on my own, I made my own style I don’t think that I should stay, you know I gotta go You moving too fast, don’t want to take it slow

[Hook] x4 Got the club going up on a Tuesday. Got yo girl in the cut and she choosy

[Verse] Working Monday night, on the corner flipping hard Made at least three thousand, on the Boulevard I’ve been working graveyard, shifts every other weekend Ain’t got no fucking time to party on the weekend I’ve been flipping in the house, making juugs on the highway I’ve been riding out of state, making money like my way I don’t think that I should dance, I’m just gon have another drink I’m doing my stance, you know my Molly pink. I’ve got the loudest of the loud, you know my gas stink My P.O. think I’m in the house, don’t give a damn about what she think

Jon Bon Jovi – Blaze Of Glory

I wake up in the morning And I raise my weary head I got an old coat for a pillow And the earth was last night’s bed I don’t know where I’m going Only God knows where I’ve been I’m a devil on the run A six gun lover A candle in the wind When you’re brought into this world They say you’re born in sin Well at least they gave me something I didn’t have to steal or have to win Well they tell me that I’m wanted Yeah I’m a wanted man I’m colt in your stable I’m what Cain was to Abel Mister catch me if you can I’m going down in a blaze of glory Take me now but know the truth I’m going down in a blaze of glory Lord I never drew first But I drew first blood I’m no one’s son Call me young gun You ask about my consience And I offer you my soul You ask If I’ll grow to be a wise man Well I ask if I’ll grow old You ask me if I known love And what it’s like to sing songs in the rain Well,I’ve seen love come And I’ve seen it shot down I’ve seen it die in vain Shot down in a blaze of glory Take me now but know the truth ‘Cause I’m going down in a blaze of glory Lord I never drew first But I drew first blood I’m the devil’s son Call me young gun Each night I go to bed I pray the Lord my soul to keep No I ain’t looking for forgiveness But before I’m six foot deep Lord,I got to ask a favor And I’ll hope you’ll understand ‘Cause I’ve lived life to the fullest Let the boy die like a man Staring down the bullet Let me make my final stand Shot down in a blaze of glory Take me now but know the truth I’m going out in a blaze of glory Lord I never drew first But I drew first blood and I’m no one’s son Call me young gun I’m a young gun

Some times while writing a chapter a song will play in my head this is one that’s playing today, as I near the books end.

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Why You Can Hear the Temperature of Water

A science video maker in China couldn’t find a good explanation for why hot and cold water sound different, so he did his own research and published it.

By Sam Kean

Most people are quite good at distinguishing between the sound of a hot liquid and the sound of a cold one being poured, even if they don’t realize it.

“Every time I give a talk and I say, ‘Surprisingly, adults can tell the difference between hot and cold water,’ people just go like this,” said Tanushree Agrawal, a psychologist who, during a video call, mimicked audience members shaking their heads no. But research she completed at the University of California at San Diego demonstrated that three-fourths of the participants in her experiments could in fact detect the difference.

You can try it yourself. Put on your headphones or listen closely to your computer or phone’s speaker and hit play on this audio recording.

Can You Hear the Temperature?

Could you tell which sound was hot and which was cold?

If you said the first one was cold, congratulations: You’re in Dr. Agrawal’s majority.

In general, cold water sounds brighter and splashier, while hot water sounds duller and frothier. But until recently no one really had evidence to explain the difference.

However, Xiaotian Bi, who earned a Ph.D. in chemical engineering last year from Tsinghua University in Beijing, offers a new explanation in a paper he and colleagues published in March on the arXiv website. It’s all about the size of the bubbles that form during pouring, he says, and this insight may have implications for how we enjoy everyday food and drink.

Dr. Bi’s paper has not yet been through peer review, and he acknowledges that much more research is needed. But Joshua Reiss, a professor of audio engineering at Queen Mary University of London, who has also studied the acoustics of hot and cold water, said he was “on the right track, for sure.”

Discussions of the varying sounds of hot and cold liquids usually point to differences in viscosity as the culprit. But Dr. Bi wasn’t satisfied with that reasoning. He produces and stars in his own popular science videos , and decided that the sounds water makes at different temperatures was a good topic . He poked around looking for published research on the subject and came away disappointed.

“None of them gave a precise explanation,” he said, adding that it was “an unsolved mystery.”

So Dr. Bi decided to do his own scientific investigation, which would inform his video. He used his expertise in fluid dynamics to explore the role played by bubbles, which actually create most of the sound we hear in moving water. You can observe this in waves, which glide along silently until they break, at which point they fall and trap air that produces noise as the bubbles resonate briefly within the water.

Previous research showed that larger air bubbles in liquids produce lower-frequency sounds. Dr. Bi also found that the acoustical spectrum of hot water has more low-frequency sounds than the spectrum of cold water. He wondered, then, whether pouring hot water into a container would trap larger bubbles than pouring cold would, and whether that might explain the difference in sounds.

His hunch proved correct. Dr. Bi purchased a container with a spigot to dispense water in a controlled fashion, first at 50 degrees Fahrenheit, then at 194 degrees. High-resolution videos and photographs revealed that hot water consistently produced bubbles 5 to 10 millimeters in size, while cold water produced bubbles around 1 to 2 millimeters.

(That’s why the cold water is on the left side of your screen in video above, and the hot water on the right)

In addition to offering an explanation of something that people hear, the research also provides insight into how we enjoy food and drink in general. Consider coffee.

Coffee tastes delicious when hot, but gunky and bitter when cold. That’s because aromatic flavor molecules jump off the surface of hot beverages more readily. And that link between flavor and temperature can produce a Pavlovian response in coffee drinkers.

This is consistent with an observation by Charles Spence, a psychologist who heads the Crossmodal Research Laboratory at Oxford and has won an Ig-Nobel Prize for research on the links between sound and taste when potato chips are consumed. In a 2021 paper, he wrote that “the sound of temperature likely helps to subtly set people’s aromatic flavor expectations,” even if unconsciously.

“Very often we taste what we predict,” he said. It’s all part of what he calls the hidden “sonic seasoning” of food and drinks.